In an honest world, this would mean war

In November, the tide of daily cable traffic to the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan brought a chilling message for Ambassador Matthew Bryza, then the top U.S. diplomat to the small Central Asian country. A plot to kill Americans had been uncovered, the message read, and embassy officials were on the target list.

The details, scant at first, became clearer as intelligence agencies from both countries stepped up their probe. The plot had two strands, U.S. officials learned, one involving snipers with silencer-equipped rifles and the other a car bomb, apparently intended to kill embassy employees or members of their families.

Both strands could be traced back to the same place, the officials were told: Azerbaijan’s southern neighbor, Iran.

The threat, many details of which were never made public, appeared to recede after Azerbaijani authorities rounded up nearly two dozen people in waves of arrests early this year. Precisely who ordered the hits, and why, was never conclusively determined. But U.S. and Middle Eastern officials now see the attempts as part of a broader campaign by Iran-linked operatives to kill foreign diplomats in at least seven countries over a span of 13 months. The targets have included two Saudi officials, a half-dozen Israelis and — in the Azerbaijan case — several Americans, the officials say.

But, let’s be honest. Iran has been at war with the US since 1979, but we’ve refused to see it, or, if we did, to ignore it and try instead to reach chimerical “grand bargain.” Iran was responsible for the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. They were behind the Khobar Towers attack in 1996. They’ve trained and supplied Iraqi insurgents against US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, resulting in American deaths. They are the most active state sponsor of terrorism in the world.

And now they’ve been caught plotting to kill our diplomats and their families.

I don’t expect it under this administration, and both Republican and Democratic presidents have refused to see the problem, but, eventually, we have to face the truth and treat Iran as an enemy who has declared jihad on us.